After meeting my birthfather Gil, I begin to love not only him, but also the culture and history of my ancestors.
Here’s an excerpt from Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity.:
In Jamaica, so many years ago, Dr. Dezon was all set to tell me about shiploads of Caribs who were taken from the island of St. Vincent by the English and dumped on the Central American coast. At the time I was not ...
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In my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity
, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
Once in Catalina, we became neighbors with a German family whose three daughters were close to me in age. Putzi, the youngest, wandered over to our house most often. We giggled and ...
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“Where are you from?” is a simple question. The answer, however, can become rather complex.
When I am asked where I’m from, people expect me to say a Caribbean island, and look at me a bit more closely when I say Guatemala because I don’t look like a representative of the Mayan population. Can I claim being Guatemalan, though? Growing up, my friends were by and large Germans and I spoke primarily German at home. I was the only Black kid ...
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As a morning person, my best hours are early in the day when I observe dawn slowly creep over the sky to warm up the horizon. I love dawn and I love going for an early hike with M’penzi, my faithful basenji.
Today I found an email from a German childhood friend in Guatemala. Feels as if friendships forged early in life remain ...
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Some full moons are different than others. Last night’s did not let me sleep. I awoke at 2 AM with my creativity in full gear, and put pencil to paper to write about something no one else in the world - and I mean it: in the World - has experienced. I’m talking about early WWII, from the perspective of a ...
It was embarrassing that I had not heard about the brilliant young writer and MacArthur Fellow, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Yesterday, an African friend directed me to the young Nigerian’s 2009 Ted Talk. At the time she was only 32 but had already received a string of awards and commendations. The fifth of six children, whose father was a professor and mother a college administrator, her childhood ...
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